Cyber attack on Republican Donald Trump's campaign

2024-08-11 14:50:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Donald Trump

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign team announced Saturday a cyberattack on internal campaign communications and said the government of Iran was responsible, citing past hostilities between Mr. Trump and Iran, without providing direct evidence.

The statement was released shortly after the online news site Politico said it had obtained emails in July from an anonymous source that provided original documents for internal use by the Trump campaign, including a report on "potential points of weaknesses" of the Republican candidate for Vice President, JD Vance.

"These documents were obtained illegally by foreign elements hostile to the United States, intent on interfering in the 2024 election and inciting chaos in our democratic process," a spokesman for Mr. Trump's campaign said in a statement. Steven Cheung.

In a post on his Truth Social network on Saturday evening, Mr Trump said that Microsoft had informed his campaign managers that Iran had hacked one of the websites. He blamed Iran, adding that "hackers were only able to obtain information that is public." He did not elaborate on the cyber attack.

The Reuters news agency has not been able to independently verify the identity of the suspected hackers or their intentions.

Mr Trump's campaign team referred to a report by Microsoft researchers on Friday. who said hackers linked to the Iranian government tried in June to hack into the account of a "senior official" of the US presidential campaign.

Hackers had managed to gain control of the account of a former political adviser and then used it to carry out a cyber attack on the official, the report said.

The report did not provide further details on the identities of the individuals targeted by the hackers.

A Microsoft spokesman declined to release the names of the officials and provide more details after the attack.

Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations in New York said in an email that "the government of Iran has no intention of interfering in the presidential election in the United States."

"We do not believe such reports," the statement said in response to the claims made by Mr. Trump's campaign team.

The former President had strained relations with Iran while running the White House. During his presidency, the United States killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and withdrew from a multilateral nuclear deal with Iran.

Former President Trump escaped an assassination attempt in July. Although there is no indication that the suspect in the incident was linked to Iran, the CNN network reported last month that the United States had received information about an Iranian plot against the former President. Iran has rejected the accusations./VOA